


No Accidental Meetings Between Souls

by circlique



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Blood and Violence, Historical Hetalia, Implied/Referenced Torture, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sex, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death, Unrequited Crush, War, more warning tags will be added as needed, probably i haven't decided on sexual content yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 16:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circlique/pseuds/circlique
Summary: Nationhood is a fickle thing. They come and go, kept alive by their memory in the minds of their people. They can be there one day and gone the next, or live on for millennia. Only two of Korea's ancient kingdoms survived into adulthood, both coming to represent one nation despite being born as separate entities. As it turns out, there are no accidental meetings between souls.(Historial Hetalia spanning the Three Kingdoms period to present day. Historical events will be followed, which means blood, violence, and angst, but there will be plenty of sweet moments too.)





	No Accidental Meetings Between Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Wow! So, this is a fic I've wanted to write for a while. If you've been following me for a while, you know that a large part of my involvement in this fandom revolves around the two Koreas. I really want to put all my headcanons for them into words and show people how they got to where they are present day. Also, Korean history is just fascinating to me.
> 
> Some warnings for this fic:  
> -there will be violence, at times graphic  
> -there will probably be sex in later chapters but I haven't decided  
> -nation names are used for the narrative, though nations may refer to each other by their human names  
> -POVS will mostly be North and South Korea's, with a few chapters from other characters' POV  
> -I'm not Korean but I'm doing my best to represent both the history and culture. I hope you can forgive any inaccuracies.
> 
> Please enjoy and leave some feedback if you have a moment!

His earliest memories were the fuzziest. Dappled light shining through the trees on a humid, summer day. A babbling brook, where he would splash and play. Mud between his toes. Blossoms falling from the trees by the river. The smiling faces of strangers making pottery.

But one memory has always been clear as water: his first name. From the moment he’d come into being, he’d known it.  _ Silla.  _ It whispered, a clear voice in his mind.  _ Silla. Silla. Silla.  _

It was a strange name, he realized. None of the people in the village seemed to have one like it. They all had names like Yong Nam, Kyung Min, and Eun Mi. Not Silla. Come to think of it, none of the people in the village seemed to know who he was, or why he was there.

“Where are your parents?” an old woman asked him. Her face was round and welcoming, but twisted by the unmistakable worry of a mother.

“Parents?” Silla echoed dumbly.

“Your mother and father,” the woman clarified. She leaned in closer, as if she could look into Silla’s mind and find the answer.

Silla could only look at her perplexedly. Other children his age, who played with him in the village square during the day, retreated at night to their homes, where adults would clean them up and put them to bed. No one ever did this for Silla.

And yet, he felt as if everyone in the village was his family, like he had known them much longer than his short lifetime would suggest. That must be the only answer, right? They were all his family. 

“Everyone!” young Silla beamed proudly. He’d found the answer! So now the woman would be satisfied, right?

But the woman only stared at him confused. Silla frowned, uncomfortable. He didn’t understand why this woman was so worried. 

“I have to go!” he cried. And he sped off before she could question him further.

He wandered the village for the rest of the day, playing with the local children and charming local stall owners into giving him treats. It ended up becoming a daily routine. Sometimes he would mix things up and venture into the nearby forests and mountains, wandering the trails that had been walked by so many before him. It somehow felt right to be there. Inexplicably, he knew the landscapes without ever having seen them before. He wandered into nearby villages, and he somehow felt as if he’d always known them as well. Their names fell naturally off his tongue, as if he were simply being reminded of them after a period of forgetfulness.

He had no concept of how long this went on for. Days blended into weeks, then months, and finally, years. The other children began to grow up around him.

One day, a group of important looking men arrived in the village. They were dressed in deep blue robes. Some of them held spears. Others held swords.

“Where is the boy?” one of them asked, puffing out his chest importantly.

“Here,” one of the villager elders replied, motioning to Silla.

One of the men approached him. Silla stared up at him.

“Are you the boy who calls himself Silla?” The man asked.

“Yes!” Silla answered. “I’m Silla!”

“I see,” the man mused, looking back at his comrades. “You’ll come with us to the capital.”

Silla didn’t know what a capital was, but he smiled and nodded anyway. “Okay!”

He was loaded onto a horse with one of the men, and off they went, galloping through the trees and mountains. 

Hours later, Silla found himself in an immaculate room, far more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen. Murals depicting epic battles and fantastic creatures were painted on the walls. A man in flowing, gold robes was seated on the floor on the other side of the room, flanked by guards. Silla thought he must be a king.

All the men got down on their knees and bowed low to the floor. Silla watched them, wondering if he should do the same. When he noticed the king looking at him, he quickly sank down to his knees and did it too.

“Is this the boy?” the king asked the men accompanying Silla.

“Yes,” one of them responded, getting to his feet. The rest of the men followed suit, and Silla, too, stood up.

“How can we know for sure?” the king asked, looking at Silla intensely.

“The villagers said he doesn’t age,” the man replied.

The king considered this for a moment. “What is your name, boy?”

“I’m Silla!” Silla beamed.

“He has no parents?” The king asked the men, who all nodded in response. “What child would name himself after our kingdom?”

None of them had an answer. The king was silent, eyeing Silla intently. 

“There’s only one way to know,” he said slowly, glancing to one of his guards.

The guard shifted uncomfortably, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “I...I cannot harm a child, your majesty.”

“If he is like the one before him, he cannot die,” the king said, his eyebrows drawing together in annoyance at this display of disobedience. “He will be unharmed. Otherwise, it will simply be another orphan off the streets.”

Silla was no longer listening. He had become entranced by a mural of a mighty dragon on one of the walls and was not paying attention to the king and his men. He looked back in time to see one of the guards approaching him, sword in hand.

He did not remember what happened next, but the next thing he knew, he was waking up in a bed that had been made for him in a different room. His old rags were gone, replaced by silky blue robes like the ones the strange men had been wearing. The fabric felt smooth and cool against his skin.

Unfamiliar voices emanated from a neighboring room.

“Just like his predecessor…”

“He’s so young. Will he grow?”

“Does he need someone to care for him?”

Silla listened for a minute or two, but was quickly distracted by his growling stomach. He hadn't eaten since leaving the village. How long ago was that?

He tossed the blanket aside and followed the voices down the hall. Inside one of the rooms, Silla found the king and several equally old and important looking men. They hadn’t noticed him.

“Hey!” Silla called from the doorway after a moment. All heads snapped in his direction. No one said anything, so Silla spoke again. “I’m hungry!”

There was a heavy silence. The men around the king shifted uncomfortably. They were all looking at the ground. Silla wondered if he’d said something wrong. 

Then, the king burst into laughter, and seeing this, the other men gradually began to laugh as well.

“Of course, my boy!” said the king. “Go back to your room! Someone will bring you something.”

“...Okay!” Silla said, pleased, and he turned to head back down the hall. 

As promised, within minutes, a younger man came in with rice and cooked meat and vegetables. It was far more (and better) food than he’d ever eaten in the village. As he would come to learn, this was the food of the royal court, the ranks of which he had unknowingly joined.

* * *

 

Months and years passed. The people around young Silla grew older. The young servants of the palace grew up and moved on to different jobs. The guards grew old and frail and were forced to retire. Even the king himself could not evade death forever. Soon, his successor took the throne.

Silla aged too, but slowly. No longer was he little more than a baby. He now bore the appearance of child of about five. Despite his still-young appearance, he was allowed to roam about the kingdom as he pleased. After all, he  _ was  _ the kingdom. He should know it like the back of his hand. 

“It’s quite strange to see a young boy with the name of his kingdom,” the king mused to him one day. “You should choose a human name. If someone asks your name, you wouldn’t have to try and explain who you are.”

“They wouldn’t believe me anyway,” Silla agreed.

The king arranged for a list of names to be put together for him. Since Silla could not yet read the characters that made up the list, the king’s advisors would read off names, and Silla would stop them when he heard one he liked. After several runs through the list, he settled on the name Yong Soo. Now, whenever he talked to villagers, he introduced himself with his human name. The king and palace servants had taken to calling him by the name as well. “Master Yong Soo,” they called him. It had a nice ring to it, Silla thought. Almost like he was a prince.

Now that he was big enough, he was taught to ride a horse. 

“Go far,” the king told him. “To all reaches of the kingdom. Learn about every village, every mountain and river. When you return, tell me everything.”

And he did. Every day, he would ride a little further, learning more about his kingdom and himself. His name was whispered by the breeze.  _ Silla. Silla. Silla _ .

Eventually, he was allowed to go farther. He began spending nights in the countryside when he was too far to make it back to the palace for the night. His horse grazed on soft sprigs of grass that grew by the creek as he cast woven nets into the water, hoping to pull it back full of fish.

One day, he reached an area totally unfamiliar to him. Unlike most places he visited, he didn’t know this one right away. It didn’t come to him as if a distant memory. He had no inkling of where to go next.

Despite feeling lost, he pressed on. The mountains here seemed unusually tall and foreboding--the villages strange and foreign. He didn’t feel as if he knew any of these people.

After a few hours, he stopped by a creek for a rest. There was an odd sensation behind his cheekbones--a hum that was both there and not there at the same time. He splashed water on his face, but it didn’t stop. He squeezed his eyes shut. It continued. For several minutes, he tried everything to make it stop. Instead, it increased to a hot buzz. He was sure it was really there, but at the same time, he wasn’t. He was at a loss. Finally, he gave up and sat against a tree. Maybe it was just this strange land…

A few minutes later, he heard footsteps crunching on the pine needles. The figure of a boy about Silla’s age emerged from the forest. He wore clothes similar to Silla’s, but thicker and red as blood. His hair was braided, and his expression was serious. The buzzing tapered away and was gone. The two stared at each other for a long moment.

“...You’re like me,” the boy said at last, eyeing Silla with interest. Although he was speaking Silla’s language, all the words sounded funny. “What’s your name?”

“Yong Soo,” Silla answered out of habit. The boy raised an eyebrow.

“No, I mean, which kingdom are you?”

“Oh.” Something clicked in Silla’s mind. “I’m Silla.”

“You’re one of the southern kingdoms…” The other boy considered this for a moment, and then nodded. “I’m Goguryeo. The big kingdom north of you.”

Indeed, Silla had seen this strange land outlined on the maps shown to him by the king’s advisors, but for some reason, it had never crossed his mind that there were others like him who embodied these lands.

There was an uncomfortable silence, so Silla simply nodded in acknowledgement.

Then, out of nowhere—

“Do you want to fight?” Goguryeo asked. He wasn’t questioning Silla’s intentions. The tone was casual--something more akin to inviting a friend to join in a game.

“What?”

“We should see which of us is stronger,” Goguryeo explained with a shrug. “How will you protect your people if you can’t fight?”

Silla, despite never having been in a real fight before, felt a flare of pride. This kid was trying to outdo him. “Sure, I’ll fight you.”

It was a mistake. He flung himself at Goguryeo, trying to grab him and tackle him, but his rival easily redirected him and shoved him face-first to the ground. Silla hit the ground with a grunt and tried to wriggle away, but Goguryeo held him fast.

“You’re pretty weak,” Goguryeo said, sounding disappointed. Silla’s nose was full of dirt.

“I’m not weak!”

“No? Then get up.” And he sat on Silla’s back, preventing him from doing just that. Silla squirmed and flailed helplessly, until Goguryeo finally saw fit to let him up.

Silla turned on him, scowling. “That wasn’t fair!”

“It was perfectly fair,” Goguryeo said, scowling right back. He waved a hand at Silla dismissively. “Anyway, you’re in my territory now. Go back to yours.” It seemed his interest in Silla was gone.

Sulking, Silla climbed back onto his horse and rode away. At last, he’d found someone like him, and unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be a friend.

It took him two days to get back to the palace.

“You should find the others,” the king suggested when Silla told him what happened. “There are other kingdoms. If you can make friends with one of them, we would have an ally if another kingdom attacked us.”

“Teach me to fight!” Silla cried, his pride still hurting from his loss a few days before. 

“We’ll do that too,” the king assured him. “But you should make friends. Sometimes, even the strongest kingdom can’t win alone.”

Years continued to pass. Soon, Silla hardly noticed them passing. More kings lived and died. New faces entered the palace walls, and left just as fast. Silla learned to fight, shoot arrows from a bow, and throw a spear into the center of a target. 

Once he mastered these skills, he grew bored, and found himself spending an increasing amount of time in the surrounding villages. He learned how to make pottery from an old woman who lived by a river. A farmer and his family taught him how to pickle vegetables. A young boy on the coast showed him the best wood to use for fires.

When Silla returned from his outings, the kings would consult Silla for information about the kingdom. What did the people in the countryside think of the government? Were people in the villages well off? Did any of them complain of criminals or invaders?

Silla told them the answers to all their questions in great detail. Sometimes, he found he knew the answers about how his people were feeling without being there to ask them. But mostly, the kings still did whatever they saw fit. After all, the embodiment of their kingdom was just a boy.  _ Who cares if I’m centuries old!  _ Silla thought bitterly.  _ I’m only a child, so what do I know? _

He had several run-ins with other kingdoms throughout the years. Baekje, the kingdom to Silla’s west, turned out to be a boy younger than himself with messy, salt-matted hair who spent most of his time on the seas. When Silla asked if he wanted an alliance, Baekje shrugged. 

“My king handles those things,” he said, uninterested. “It’s my job to keep track of what happens in other kingdoms though, so why don’t you tell me about yours?”

They spent several hours talking. Baekje, like Silla, did not remember much of his earliest days.

“All I remember is the beach,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder if maybe I crawled out of the waves, or if I’m the child of some ocean god.”

“Can you swim?” Silla asked, curious.

“Ha! Of course!” Baekje laughed. Silla noticed he had a little gap between his front teeth. “Can you not?”

Silla shook his head.

“Hm, well,” Baekje hummed, “the water’s a bit cold, but I guess I could teach you.”

The water wasn’t just cold—it was freezing. It had a bitter bite that caused Silla to gasp and pull back as soon as his toes touched it.

But not Baekje. He dove right in, submerging himself immediately. After a few seconds, he had not resurfaced, and Silla began to panic. What if it was colder than he thought he could handle and he was drowning, paralyzed by the cold? Silla paced along the shore, trying to work up the courage to go in after him.

Then, Baekje’s head popped up, bobbing above the waves. His messy hair was pressed flat against his head. 

“Just a little cold,” he said, tossing his head so his hair flopped back out of his face.

“I thought you drowned!” Silla cried, jumping back as another cold wave lapped at his bare feet. “Or froze to death!”

Baekje looked at him like he was an idiot.

“You know we can’t die, right?” Baekje said, wading back toward the shore.

“Well, yeah, I mean—” Silla stammered. He had  _ sort of _ known. After all, he’d seen so many humans die while he’d kept on living. “We never get old.”

“No, I mean you can’t die from anything else either,” Baekje clarified. “Not forever anyway. I drowned a few times. And froze a few. And I was attacked by some big fish. And I ate a poisonous sea creature once. But I always woke up again.”

Silla’s eyes must have been as big as saucers.

Baekje came back onto the beach and searched through his bag. He pulled out a flat, jagged stone he had used earlier to pry apart oysters. 

“Want me to show you?” he asked, holding up the stone as if the concept of death were no big deal. “It’s kind of dull but I bet it could kill you.”

Needless to say, Silla quickly shook his head, horrified.

“No, that’s okay!” He said. “Maybe you could just teach me which sea creatures are okay to eat instead!”

Baekje showed him how to spear fish in the shallows with a sharpened stick. As hard as Silla tried, every time he was sure he had it, he seemed to be just a little off.

“It’s something about the water,” Baekje explained. “You have to aim below where you think it is, or you’ll miss.”

It was no use. Baekje ended up providing all the fish for their meal that night. Silla gathered firewood from the forest and started a fire while Baekje cleaned and gutted the fish with his stone.

As they say by the fire enjoying their freshly caught fish, Baekje told Silla of kingdoms across the sea--places called Japan and China, and tales of empires in even more distant lands.

“I’m leaving on a boat again soon,” he said. “I’ll bring you back something.”

It was a long time before Silla saw him again.

Despite wanting to know him better, Silla found that whenever he asked about the boy’s whereabouts, he was told that Baekje was still on his voyage to a far away land. However, he ran into Goguryeo several more times. Sometimes they fought. Others, they simply talked. Silla could not quite work out what to make of his northern neighbor, who seemed to be a friend at times and an enemy at others. 

One day, Silla was chasing fish in a shallow river when he felt an odd sensation behind his cheekbones. By now, he knew what the feeling meant. Out of the woods, two figures emerged. Silla immediately recognized one of them as Goguryeo, but the other was new. He was taller than both of them by several heads. In fact, this stranger appeared much older than them too--at least the equivalent of a teenager. He was the perfect picture of eternal youth, with a face that was as smooth and flawless as the shell of a fresh egg. His hair was pulled back loosely and fell around his neck and shoulders like a stream of black water. Silla’s first thought was that whoever he was, he must be a god--or at the very least a prince. He was entranced.

“What is your name?” the stranger asked, his accent even heavier than Goguryeo’s.

Silla nearly forgot his own name. “Yong--no, Si-yo--Silla!” he managed to stammer out. He caught a glimpse of Goguryeo trying to stifle a chuckle. His cheeks burned.

“Well, Silla,” the stranger said, taking Silla’s hand with a smile. “My name is China, and starting today, I’ll be your older brother!”

**Author's Note:**

> Some pronunciation notes:  
> -Silla = "shi-lah"  
> -Baekje = "paek-jeh" (roughly)  
> -Goguryeo = "koh-goo-ryuh" (roughly)
> 
> Other notes:  
> -Silla was known for using cunning diplomatic means to its great advantage  
> -Baekje was known as a great sea power, the "Phoenicia of the East"  
> -Goguryeo was known for being a highly militaristic state  
> -All three were born roughly at the same time, between about 80-18BC, though the exact years are a subject of debate.


End file.
